Children First Canada CEO Sara Austin joins Alberta Primetime host Michael Higgins to discuss the latest on the push for an Online Safety Act in Canada, including testifying before the House of Commons this week. This interview has been edited for clarity and length. Michael Higgins: What was your message to federal lawmakers? Sara Austin: My message was loud and clear: the time for studies is over. They need to stop stalling and start acting. For years we’ve known what the right thing to do is. It’s been 1,600 days since the federal government pledged to introduce online safety legislation to protect children and all Canadians from online harms. As every day goes by, children’s lives are on the line. Kids pay significantly with their mental and physical health, their well- being. In mMy point and the testimony of [17-year-old] Josephine and 12-year-old Zachary who were with me, was really to try and plead with our parliamentarians to do the right thing. Table the Online Safety Act and work with parents, their children, and MPs from all political stripes to get this legislation passed as quickly as possible. MH: Give us some perspective on how long this road has been. SA: Children First Canada has been in place for 10 years now. Throughout this past decade we have been speaking up on behalf of Canada’s 8 million children and demanding our federal leaders take action to protect kids in this digital world. Our advocacy is really being driven by what the kids themselves have told us. Children and youth from coast to coast have been speaking up about what it’s like to be a kid in this digital world. It’s very different than it was for you and me. We didn’t grow up with social media, the internet, and all the benefits and harms it brings with it. Kids are really frustrated with the harm they’re exposed to every day. They see the benefits, they’re not naive. They don’t want to have all technology taken out of their lives. They realize it’s an important part of their education, their connection to their peers. They get to learn and connect with others. But they really see there’s a moral authority for parents, for educators, and particularly for our policy makers to step into the gap and create regulation that creates a safer digital space for them to live in. In all other aspects of kids’ lives, whether it’s the food they eat, the medicine they take, the cars that they ride in, the parks they play in, all these spaces are regulated. We demand safety for children. It’s not to say these laws are perfect, but they create a safer environment for our kids. Yet in the digital world, we’ve gone for more than over 20 years now trusting the tech industry to do the right thing and they have been proving themselves untrustworthy. Earlier this week in the United States, bereaved parents who have lost their children tragically because of online harms stood in front of the Capitol with photos of their children pleading with their lawmakers and pursuing legal action. One of those photos was of Amanda Todd from British Columbia. She tragically died due to suicide at the age of 15. Her mother Carol was testifying with me to Parliament earlier this week. The time for studies is over. We need our leaders to take action, and we are begging and pleading with them to do that. MH: How far do you see the federal government being willing to go with whatever legislation finally comes to pass? SA: There’s a lot of talk right now about what’s happening in Australia with the social media age restrictions and limiting kids under 16 from accessing social media apps. That’s created a huge global uproar for parents excited to see steps being taken. We’ve seen France and Spain and other countries talking about similar action, and it’s raising questions for a lot of parents here in Canada. Thousands of parents here in Canada have signed a petition calling on our government to follow suit. We actually want our government to take a further step, to actually raise the bar, because we know kids are harmed with social media. But it goes way beyond that. We’ve seen countless examples of kids being harmed by AI chatbots, by the creation of AI sexual abuse content material involving children. The family vehicles kids ride in have apps that can create harmful content. Kids are digital citizens. They’re exposed to technology from the moment they wake up to the moment they go to sleep. In their homes, in their schools, on their phones and tablets. We need legislation looking at this full range of technology, and that holds tech companies to account. And does better to equip parents and children who are just feeling at our wits end with better tools to keep our kids safe in this digital world. MH: Is there any concern over legislation being unable to keep up with how rapidly the online world is evolving? SA: It is an impossible task to have a piece of legislation that is going to be the silver bullet here. We recognize no law is going to be perfect. It’s going to have to evolve over time as the technology continues to evolve. We’ve seen just in the past few months alone the escalation of harms, particularly around AI. Just recently there was a boy here arrested in Calgary. A 17-year-old boy arrested for creating abusive content using AI involving multiple girls across schools here in the city. We’ve just seen so many other harms that are being perpetrated against kids, and so we need legislation that looks at this full scope and continues to be evaluated and evolved. But we can’t wait for the perfect solution. We’ve seen the government now stalling for four years. They promised to do this in 100 days, and four years have passed. That’s a third of a child’s childhood. Every day that passes puts kids in harm’s way. We need them to act with what they know today and continue to evolve and change as technology evolves around it. MH: In the meantime, what message do you have for parents about their kids’ online activity? SA: I’m a mom, and I realize it feels sometimes like an impossible task. It feels totally overwhelming to stay on top of these things. But I think first and foremost we as parents owe it to our kids to be educated and informed. There are lots of great resources that exist and I think we need to be equipped in making sure our kids’ devices are set up with whatever controls we can and we’re limiting their access to apps we know are harmful and can really damage our children. But don’t feel powerless in this situation. We have voices. We can hold our leaders to account. We encourage people to go to our website to sign a petition and demand our members of Parliament and our prime minister pass this legislation as quickly as possible. The time for partisan bickering is over. This is over. This isn’t about controlling free speech. This isn’t about creating unnecessary bureaucracy. This is about the essential task of protecting our children. We need all political leaders to work together to solve this. We need parents to raise their voices to hold our leaders to account and to demand better for all of our children.
